


strange-faces

by Chierei



Category: Gotham (TV), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Past Child Abuse, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), Supernatural Elements, or maybe not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24964639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chierei/pseuds/Chierei
Summary: Statement of Edward Nygma, formally Edward Nashton, regarding his reflection. Original statement given February 2nd, 2011. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.
Relationships: Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma (mentioned)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 39





	strange-faces

**Author's Note:**

> No background knowledge of the Magnus Archive is needed except knowing that The Magnus Archive is a horror/mystery podcast centered around the Head Archivist, Jonathon Sims, who records various potential supernatural statements. For TMA fans, there are no spoilers and this takes place during S1.

_Statement of Edward Nygma, formally Edward Nashton, regarding his reflection. Original statement given February 2nd, 2011. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London._

_Statement begins._

> I’m a student at King’s College in London, working on my Masters of Forensic Pathology. I am sure you can tell—or I guess not, since this is in writing—but I’m American. I graduated top of my class from Gotham University, and when I was offered a scholarship to get my Masters in King’s College, I took it.
> 
> But I’m getting ahead of myself.
> 
> My family was normal. My dad was in middle management, and my mom was a homemaker. They were very normal—living in a normal house in a normal neighborhood and wanted a normal kid.
> 
> I think my parents always knew that I was off. Different. My earliest memory was when I was four—or well, I call it my first memory, but since 40% of what people recall as their ‘first memory’ is actually not it—but it doesn’t matter because all these are the same in the end. But my first memory was taking home a school project: the silly ones they make children create around Christmas to give to their parents in an attempt to foster creativity or whatnot.
> 
> The teacher, if you call watching a bunch of toddlers a teacher, had us ‘make’—and I use that term lightly—gilded walnuts. If you didn’t know, gilded walnuts were popular Christmas tree ornaments in the Victorian era. All you needed was a walnut, some gold paint, glue, and ribbons. The idea was that you’d write a note and put it in the walnut and then give it to someone you loved who would open it on Christmas day.
> 
> I remember taking it home, and I was excited to show my parents. I gave it to my mom when I got home, and she might’ve taken a look at it. Maybe she even said something about how nice it was, but I don’t remember that. I only remember finding it in the trash can later that day.
> 
> I fished it out. I don’t know why, but I kept it. I still have it now, back in my apartment.
> 
> Needless to say, my parents didn’t really care for me. I was too smart, too curious, too different for their liking. Instead of wanting to kick around a soccer ball, I’d rather index all the leaves in the backyard. Instead of playing with toy trucks, I preferred to solve puzzles. At best, my father would ignore me, and at worst, he’d scream, tell me how useless and stupid I was.
> 
> My mother was worse, though. She never defended me or was cruel. She just.didn’t care.
> 
> It didn’t get physical until I was nine. I had won first place in the science fair. My project was testing the decomposition rate of various fruits in different outdoor environments, and I had been working on it for a month. I had brought home my ribbon and little trophy—plastic with a granite base—and I think I was still hopeful that my parents might love me.
> 
> I showed it to my father, who took one look at it and declared, quite plainly, that I must have cheated.
> 
> And when I said that I hadn’t—that I had won because I was smarter than all of the other students—he hit me. I don’t know why I said it; I should have just gone to my room. But it just came out, like my mouth wasn’t my own.
> 
> It was the first time my father hit me, but it wasn’t the last.
> 
> You think I would have learned over the years to keep my mouth shut, but sometimes, it would get away from me. I don’t know why I’d always have to snark back, and my memories of those years are fuzzy, like looking at it through a dusty window. I’d remember what would happen before and a bit of what happened after, but the majority of it is just...faded.
> 
> Anyway, well. Uhm. I think I started noticing it when I was twelve. My, uh--
> 
> I̪͐ ô̬nḻ̄y͜͠ ̧̛ex͓̄i͎͊s̯͑t̰̅ wh̪̊en̹͐ ̯͠yoụ̐ ar̡͂ë̤ hę̐r͔̒e,̙͞ b̡̎u̥͋t͇̽ ̢͆ŵ̗ḣ̯ere͖͐ yoṳ͞ ̹̈́në̦ver ̰͡wer̳͛e̬̓,̦̐ ̮͊I̧̾ ̫̆c̼͑a̭͝n̳͛ ͉̂never̢̈́ ̼̉be̞. ̹̚W͚̔ẖ̍at ̯̍ả͓m͕̏ ̟̔ȋ̖?
> 
> Do you give up? No, wait, of course you can't guess. This is a written statement, afterall. What I mean to say is, my reflection. I started noticing my reflection. Maybe it had always been like this, but I didn’t properly notice it until this point.
> 
> At first, it was little things, like the feeling that something wasn’t quite right with it. I’d look in the mirror, and I would wonder if that bruise had been there before or if my eyebrows were that light. Sometimes my glasses would be missing from my reflection even though I remembered putting them on, but then I’d find them folded up in my hand. I thought it was me being forgetful. Teachers had diagnosed me with half a dozen disorders over the years—everything from learning disabilities to ADHD—which, of course, made my father hate me more. Not only was I a freak, but I was a stupid one at that, in his eyes.
> 
> But then it was other things. Like, how I’d see my reflection at the corner of my eye, and it looked like it was moving. On its own. Without me.
> 
> It wouldn’t be much or even noticeable unless you were looking: the angle would be off or the head would be tilted the other way. And it would always just be in the corner of my eye—when I was focused on something else, but I’d just _see_ it and know it wasn’t right even if I couldn’t articulate it.
> 
> Did you know that there is something called ‘strange-face in the mirror illusions’? There was a study done by the Università di Urbino where they had healthy adults stare at their reflections for seven minutes. It only took one minute, on average, before they’d start seeing things—huge deformations of their face, monsters, strangers, even animals. The reason for this is because our brains are only capable of selective processing. Our minds focus only on what it thinks is most important. It’s called the Troxler Effect.
> 
> So if you stare at your reflection long enough, the edges start to disappear because your eyes and brain are deeming them unimportant. Therefore, it makes sense that it starts looking terrifying—with your mouths or ears or cheeks just being gone. And then our brain tries to fill in the missing pieces, so it shows you monsters and animals and faces that aren’t yours.
> 
> I spent a long time studying this once I learned about it. I spent hours reading books on the Troxler Effect. I have an eidetic memory, so that translates to a lot of books. I even learned Italian so that I could write to the lead researcher in the study. I convinced him I was a Ph.D. student at Boston University doing further research on the matter. I even hacked into the university’s records to make myself an email to seem legitimate, and he sent me a lot of his notes.
> 
> So I know this wasn’t that. This wasn’t these strange-faces.
> 
> When I started high school, it started happening more often and not just from the corner of my eyes, but when I’d be looking straight at the mirror. It started small—like smiling a little bigger than I was or its posture would be wrong. Other times it would almost appear normal, but its movements were off by just a fraction of a second. Other times my reflection would... _smirk_ at me like it knew a secret.
> 
> By the time I was a junior, it liked to wink at me in the morning. Sometimes, it would even blow me a kiss.
> 
> I think it was teasing me. Sometimes, it—he—would copy me. And not like a regular mirror, where it’s a reflection—an inverse. This was him _copying_ me. If I lifted my right hand, he’d lift his right hand. If I raised my left hand, and he’d do the same in perfect synchronicity.
> 
> I tried to avoid him. I covered up the mirror in my bathroom, took down all the ones that my mother had put in the hallway. I even refused to drive, so I didn’t have to look into rear-view mirrors.
> 
> It didn’t matter, because I’d see him anyway. It might be in the window reflection in class or some girl’s cosmetic mirror. One time it was even in the reflection of the lake—there he was, looking back at me—waving.
> 
> I couldn’t avoid him—my reflection. So I started just to ignore him, pretend I didn’t see him and just...go about my day.
> 
> I don’t think he liked that because it was only a month before he started talking to me.
> 
> I...tried not to talk back. I did. I thought that maybe I could will him away if I didn’t acknowledge it. But he knew me. He knew every little one of my secrets and thoughts and fears, and he loved to say just the perfect thing to make me hate myself. To hate him.
> 
> I knew it was getting worse when my grades started slipping. I had been a straight-A student my entire life—I was taking every advanced class my school offered because I needed a full-ride scholarship to get away from that place. But it was hard to sleep some nights—I could hear him from my bathroom mirror, yelling at me. Even closing the door and putting on headphones didn’t drown him out.
> 
> So when I started falling asleep in class, people noticed. And when I say people, I mean, my teacher.
> 
> I know she meant well. But it’s those warning signs they tell teachers to look out for—changes in academics, friends, mood, etc. I didn’t have any friends, and as far as any of the teachers were concerned, my mood was studious to a fault.
> 
> They did all the expected things. Pulled me aside, asked me all sorts of questions that I gave all the right textbook answers. No, nothing was wrong. Yes, my family life is fine. No, no one has approached.
> 
> I tried to play it off as stress for college, but I had never been a good liar.
> 
> So they called my father.
> 
> The beatings hadn’t ever really stopped over the years. They got worse, I think, once he realized I wasn’t going to tell anyone. And he was smart enough to usually keep any bruises where I could cover it with clothes and never did anything that sent me to the hospital. It became routine, at a certain point. Wake up, go to school, do my work in the public library and make it home in time for dinner where my father would enumerate all the ways I was a failure while my mother did _nothing_. If I was lucky and my father didn’t think I was talking back or giving sass or any of the things I never did, he would finish dinner with a beer on the couch and the game. If I wasn’t, I’d spend the next hour or two making sure I hadn’t fractured a rib.
> 
> I got very good at first aid.
> 
> I have to give him credit, though, because the bastard was an excellent actor. He played the worried and concerned father perfectly, the right amount of sternness to assure that he would take care of me, and we were sent on our way.
> 
> He beat me bad enough that night that my mother stood up for me for the first time in seventeen years. You think that I would have been happy about this, that it was some sign that she did love me in a way, but all she cared about was what the neighbors would think or how the school might be suspicious.
> 
> Something about that just burned me. She was supposed to be my mother, and all she could care about was her abusive neanderthal of a husband and _what the neighbors would think if they heard_.
> 
> Dissociation is a psychological experience in which you feel disconnected from your sense of self. It is usually experienced as a feeling of intense alienation or unreality. I know that’s what I was experiencing.
> 
> I could feel myself standing, spitting blood on the floor, and saying something biting and acidic to my father’s back. I remember what I said—or what _he_ said next—because it wasn’t me. It might have been my lips and my body, but it wasn’t me.
> 
> _E͖̼̒͞d̮̃d͓̺̏͌ȉ̗̕͟e͔͞ ̯̲̋́i̙͐s ̧̽t̲̙͑͞ak͈̗̎͞in̛͟g̘͑ ͗͜a̦̣͒͗ ͓̞͋̂b̳͝r͍͓̓̍ea̘͐k ͉̖͂͌r̘͝ȋ̡gh̘̊t ̦͇̿͌n̜͘ō̫̑͟w͎͊.͖̱͋̎ Cā̱̤͘r͕͆e̩̔ ̖̭̎̐t̙o͖̿ ͉͇͂̒l͔̎e͉̍͡ͅa̡͞ve̳̐ a̝̦̓̐ më͎̪́s̘͙͒͡sag͔̓e̛͓̘͆?̫͉͋͡_
> 
> I...don’t remember what happened after. The neighbors called the police after they heard gunshots. By the time they arrived, my mother and father were dead, and I was bleeding from a wound to the head.
> 
> Forensics would later rule it a murder-suicide. My father, after getting called to the school, had beaten me within an inch of my life—which had been true. The evidence showed that I had four broken ribs and a concussion—explaining the head wound and selective memory loss. They think that my father had thought I was already dead, which is why he didn’t shoot me like he did my mother before turning the gun on himself.
> 
> I was almost eighteen and about to graduate, so they put me with a foster family didn’t care what I did as long as their monthly stipend kept coming. I went to court-mandated therapy to help deal with the trauma of my father’s attempted murder and subsequent suicide. I graduated at the top of my class, got my full-ride scholarship, and changed my name.
> 
> For the first few months, I kept waiting to see him again—my reflection. It took about a year before I was comfortable having mirrors around. I figured that maybe it was all just...in my head.
> 
> Did you know that long-term memory is associated with many different areas of the brain, including the hippocampus, amygdala, thalamus and hypothalamus, peripheral cortex, and temporal cortex? The hippocampus and amygdala are connected to the transference of memory from short-term to long-term memory. The thalamus is related to the reception of information and transferring that information, in the case of memories, to the cerebral cortex. Theoretically, damage to any of these parts of my brain could result in false memories.
> 
> I figured it was that—brain damage from my concussion made me...invent my reflection all those years ago, had inserted him into my memories, but none of it was real. The science to back up this theory is shaky, which is ironic given my profession, but I wanted for it all to go away. Moving to Gotham was my fresh start.
> 
> And that would have been it. A large swathe of my life sealed behind juvenile records and a name I don’t answer to.
> 
> But then I wouldn’t be here, would I? Ghosts, supernatural, these things _aren’t_ real. Maybe I am going insane.
> 
> I rent this apartment—or flat, I guess—close to campus. It’s expensive as you can imagine central London is, but I don’t have many expenses. The school covers my tuition, and I get a modest stipend that would let me afford one of the rooms in their residence halls. But I got a decent amount of money from my mother’s life insurance, so I decided I would rather live alone for once.
> 
> I don’t like taking the tube, as you call it here. It’s loud and crowded and too many people. I prefer to walk. It’s only eighteen minutes one-way—twenty-two if I stop for a cup of coffee—and the weather here is no worse than in Gotham. And every day I walk past an art installation. It consists of a series of square pillars, ten feet high, with each side covered in mirrors. There are sixteen of them, making a four by four grid and each face is exactly sixteen inches wide and spaced sixteen inches apart.
> 
> It has been over four years since I’d seen _him_ and I haven’t actively avoided mirrors in three years, but I still don’t like them. But I wasn’t going to add another four minutes to my walk just to do something illogical such as avoiding a few mirrors in public.
> 
> It was four days ago, and I had stayed late in the lab to finish one of my experiments regarding temperature variations in post-mortem livers in extreme salinity. No later than average, but I presume I was unlucky.
> 
> I was just passing by these mirrors when this man—mugger, I suppose is a more accurate description—came up to me. He had a knife. It was a boot knife, six inches long with a stiletto-like blade and a crude _LG_ scratched near the handle into the metal. I froze.
> 
> But I wasn’t looking at the man. I was staring at that silver reflection on the knife, bathed in orange streetlights, and I saw him.
> 
> My reflection. He winked and nudged his head to the side as though to say, _hey over there_. And I couldn’t _not_ look.
> 
> I saw my reflection in the mirror, so many of them, and they were all looking back at me with the same grin, wide and toothy.
> 
> The mugger must have gotten impatient because he stepped closer, telling me to give him my wallet or he’d slice me open. But I didn’t care, because I kept looking at my reflection.
> 
> And then he stepped out of the mirror.
> 
> That’s the only way I could describe it. He just took a step, and suddenly he wasn’t a reflection but a full person who looked just like me except for that smile.
> 
> And the mugger hadn’t noticed, too busy being frustrated with me, and he moved as though to slash at me—not very effective as his blade would cause more damage with a stabbing motion—and he would have gotten me except my reflection stepped in between us.
> 
> It happened so quickly, but one moment a strange man was coming at me with a knife and then my reflection was right there, twisting the man’s wrist and then _he_ had the knife now. And then there was this sound—I’ve heard it many times—the sound of a sharp blade going through flesh. Again and again and again.
> 
> After, my reflection turned to me. There was blood on his hands and his clothes, splatters on his face and his glasses, and I didn’t know what to do or think.
> 
> My reflection caught me by the chin and kissed me. It tasted like blood.
> 
> And he said, _S̭̤͐̈́t̨̘͐̑a̡̯͋͂ÿ̱ s̾ͅa̘̚f̯̎e̫,̼̐ ̹̱͆͞E̼̝͐̃d̦͖́͘d͎̞͗̊i̩͚̓̇e̦̍.̪̱̓̕_
> 
> I don’t remember getting home, but I must have because I woke up the next morning in my bed. My clothes were in the laundry hamper, but there was no blood. I assumed that I must have dreamt it. Stress, you know?
> 
> Until I found the knife. It was a six-inch boot knife, with a stiletto-like blade, and had a crude _LG_ scratched near the handle.

_Statement ends._

_Well. I am inclined to dismiss this as the hallucinations resulting from long-term head trauma complications or undiagnosed schizophrenia, but we will get to that._

_Tim managed to pull the juvenile records of a one Edward Nashton that confirms findings of long-term abuse as well as the police record of his mother’s murder and father’s suicide. Georgina Nashton was shot twice—once in the stomach and another in the head—in October of 2006 before her husband shot himself once in the head. Their son was found with three broken ribs and a significant concussion. He was in the hospital for two weeks before being transferred to a foster home. The university records of Edward Nygma from Gotham University show that Mr. Nygma was a bright student if his three published papers have anything to say about that._

_Martin made himself useful for once and managed to track down the aforementioned mugger. Louis Griffin, age twenty-three, with a laundry list of arrests for petty crimes and a few more for aggravated assault. He was found dead on the street a little after midnight on the morning of February 2nd of 2011 in a pool of his blood. Crime scene photos show the installation of mirrors, and the autopsy report confirmed that he died after being stabbed five times with a slim knife that was approximately six inches long._

_However, further research into the subject brings up some concerning discoveries. Mr. Nygma completed his Masters’ in Forensic Pathology in 2012 and accepted a position as a forensic technician at Gotham City Police Department, where he worked in relative obscurity for four years. There is little mention of him except for the occasional credit in some newspaper articles that Sasha managed to dig out._

_On January 22nd, 2016, Mr. Nygma was committed to Arkham Asylum for the murder of his girlfriend, Kristen Kringle, her prior boyfriend, Tom Dougherty, and a local hunter. His files from Arkham Asylum are...sparse but show a list of disorders including narcissistic personality disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia with fully formed audio and visual hallucinations, and the possibility of dissociative identity disorder. He was released as ‘sane’—and the file uses that exact wording and even has a copy of his certificate of sanity, dear lord—after eight months, where he appeared to have been reformed and acted as Chief of Staff for Gotham’s mayor. And if these tabloids that Martin uncovered are true--doubtful--then he was playing a kept man for the mayor in what was apparently_ quite _the scandalous affair._

_No more than six months after that, he appeared to have returned to his prior psychosis and is a self-proclaimed ‘villain.’ He calls himself ‘The Riddler.’_

_There doesn’t seem to be much more to say. This is clearly a case of a mentally ill man and his deranged hallucinations spawned from a childhood of trauma._

_There is one other thing, however. Included in the file was a single playing card—an ace of spades with a large green question mark in the center and this written on the back:_

Pr̩̆ȏ̥n̺͡oun͙̆cē͜d̫͊ ̂͟a̢̿s a̲͋ l̕͟ette̻̒r,̀͟ ͓̄wri̜̓t̙̕te̬͐n ͈͒wi̩th ť͟h͈̐ŗee.̧̓ ̔͢I hav̮͞ẹ̋ ̬͒a twin͎͛ ̮͂whǒ͉m ͎̊I̪̾ ̰̂c̦̓annot̛̩ sȩȩ͠. W̮̚hat ̞̕am̓͟ I?͚̔

_Though I don’t have the faintest idea what an eye might have to do with anything of this._

_End recording._

__  
_S̭̤͐̈́t̨̘͐̑a̡̯͋͂ÿ̱ s̾ͅa̘̚f̯̎e̫,̼̐ ̹̱͆͞E̼̝͐̃d̦͖́͘d͎̞͗̊i̩͚̓̇e̦̍.̪̱̓̕  
_ _Art by[FoxSteel.](https://foxsteel--fanart.tumblr.com/)_

**Author's Note:**

> I was bitten by the TMA bug awhile ago and had a few ideas regarding possible TMA/Gotham crossovers. The final idea that crossed my path really hooked me, and I created...this. I hope everyone enjoyed! It's different than my normal works, but it was still a great fun to write. 
> 
> If you liked this, please spare a moment to leave me a comment with what you thought. <3


End file.
